Ridgeline
by MeeCee
Summary: They had been at war twenty-two months and, if feeling especially generous, would tell themselves that they had come to a stalemate.  "Go pull yourself together, girl.  You're useless standing there contemplating the futility of life."


His voice sounded muted and remote, like she was underwater. She slowly turned her head towards him and nodded. Yes, she needed to see the Hokage. The sentinel raised his chin to her in a small salute. Pushing the tent flap aside, the buzzing in her head increased. Her mind felt like it had been left on a channel of static. The flap slipped closed behind her with a soft whoosh of heavy canvas and she was left in the cool silence of the tent and a deafening toneless ringing in her ears.

"Sakura."

Abruptly the noise stopped and the world came into sharp and disconcerting focus. Kakashi stood, hands in his pockets, slightly to the side of Shikamaru who sitting at a field table intent on sealing shut small message scrolls. He stared at her questioningly, "What do you need?"

Sakura felt her jaw clench as her fists released at her sides. She looked down at them, surprised at their action. Turning her hands over, she studied the rust brown substance underneath her nails. "Blood, that's dried blood" a far away voice in the back of her mind informed her. Her fingers flexed back into fists and shook slightly.

Shikamaru glanced over at Kakashi momentarily before pulling the final message scroll towards himself. "I'll take these over to the couriers now. They should reach their destinations by tomorrow evening at the latest."

"I'll deliver one." Sakura was surprised at the sound of her own voice. She looked up and met Kakashi's eye, begging. "The unit is in good order and all the patients are stable," she tried to keep her voice as toneless as possible, like she was simply giving him a status report. Shikamaru's hand hesitated momentarily before pressing the seal down into the red wax. A moment passed in silence while the wax hardened. He gathered up all but one of the scrolls and left the tent without ever glancing at Sakura. "Tell him I'll be back in about a week," he threw over his shoulder to Kakashi, "I have a few more things to attend to here."

Kakashi sighed inaudibly and picked up the remaining scroll. He held it out to her. "For Gaara, at the third encampment. You must deliver it to him and only him. After he reads it, it must be destroyed in front of you. Return with word that he has read and understood." Sakura nodded and reached forward, grasping the small roll of paper. Kakashi didn't let go and instead caught her opposite elbow.

"This is not forever."

"I know," she paused and pulled in a long breath. "I know; I just need to…"

Kakashi nodded and squeezed her arm. "Camp three is eighteen hours from here. I'll see you in a few days."

* * *

><p>Sakura ran. The wind filled her ears and her mind focused only on the speed of her feet and the earth below her. She ran for hours. At mid day she came to a river and realized her legs were trembling. She collapsed into the reeds and memory rushed into the emptiness.<p>

* * *

><p>Their forward camp had been set up three weeks earlier. Scouting parties left regularly to test the enemy's defenses and to determine a new strategy. They had been at war twenty-two months and, if feeling especially generous, would tell themselves that they had come to a stalemate. Kakashi and Shikamaru were cobbling together a truly last ditch effort to turn the tide of battle. Kakashi had joked to her one evening that he was inspired by Naruto's unpredictable techniques. At the time, Sakura had laughed and swatted him playfully on the shoulder, but when she return to the solitude of her tent she had felt a slow helplessness begin to creep up her legs.<p>

Then, a few days later, the helplessness attempted to pull her down into the earth. A scouting team was returning and she had met them at the edge of camp when the sentry ninja had alerted her to injuries. Naruto had Lee on his back, limp and silent, his arms swinging on either side of Naruto's neck. At the sound of her rushing footsteps, Naruto looked up and the expression on his face made Sakura stop dead.

His face was a perfectly blank. No sadness, no disappointment. No joy, no hope. Nothing. Naruto _never_ was expressionless. It was impossible for him to be unemotional; the boy was fueled by raw feeling. He was her lodestone. He was everyone's. As long as Naruto had strength and conviction, so could she. But here he was, face empty, eyes unseeing and Sakura was _terrified_.

And suddenly it was over. Naruto's eyes focused on her and relief flooded them. "Sakura-chan, help me with Lee-san."

But the damage had been done. Sakura functioned automatically the rest of the day and evening. She ministered to every injury and saw that every patient was stabilized while the helplessness began to hum about her legs and climb into her belly. Naruto sat patiently while she sedated Lee slightly so he would miss the worst of the pain while she patched him back together. Once, when she was turned away from him she heard a slight sigh from Naruto and the helplessness turned to panic and clutched at her chest making it hard to breathe. By the time she found herself in front of Kakashi's tent all she heard was static.

She opened her eyes again. The grass she was laying in swayed in the breeze and the sun gleamed off the river. Tsunade's voice cut in. "I'll give you fifteen minutes, girl, go pull yourself together. You're useless standing there contemplating the futility of life." Her voice was half laughing, half tired as she scratched at the chart furiously and glanced down the hall at a commotion of techs. "Philosophizing never won a war or kept a man alive."

Sakura let out a shaky breath and rolled on to her back. She was right, but then, Tsunade had always been right. Running her fingers through her sweaty hair Sakura laughed softly to herself.

* * *

><p>The sun was beginning to set when she arrived at the encampment. As Sakura made her way down the orderly avenues of tents, she caught sight of Temari and jogged to meet her. "Sakura!" Temari greeted, "What a surprise. What are you here for?"<p>

"I have a message for Gaara." Temari held her hand out expectantly and Sakura shook her head. "No, I have to deliver it to him."

Temari's smile slipped and her lips thinned in understanding. She jerked her chin towards the ridgeline that rose behind the camp. "He's up on the rocks. There's a path just to the east that you can follow up."

The tent city ended a few hundred yards from the edge of the tree line and Sakura picked up the path through the tall grass. Fireflies were beginning to appear, flickering in and out in the half light. Grass eased into trees and the fireflies accompanied her into the darkness of the woods. The path wound steeply up the side of the mountain and she found herself scrambling over larger and larger boulders. At the top of the ridge the rocks righted themselves and grew huge. Great expanses of stone reached towards the sky, like spines on the back of a giant sleeping dragon. Sakura slipped silently along the narrow path between the rocks. They were still warm to the touch from the day's sunlight, but were backlit black against a sky that was now bright with stars.

The ridgeline pitched downwards and the stones began to list towards the valley below. Eventually they leveled out into wide, flat shelves of rock. On the last one, before the mountain dropped suddenly away from the sky, sat Gaara.

Sakura shuffled lightly to announce herself though she knew well that he had probably been aware of her since she entered the woods at the base of the mountain. Still, it was a courtesy ninja tried to afford each other. Gaara turned his head towards her slightly, the side of his face a dull white in the starlight. He made no move to get up and instead returned to contemplating the valley below. Sakura instinctively took this as an invitation, though she couldn't have been sure why. She stepped forward and settled herself near him on the ledge before handing over the scroll.

Gaara split open the seal with his thumb and read through the contents slowly. Sakura pulled her knees up to her chest and sat quietly gazing out across the valley. Far below them the white canvas tents of the encampment faded into the darkness while a hundred different cooking fires blazed to life between them. She could imagine the conversations beginning, the jokes and stories exchanged with good natured teasing. Sakura smiled to herself and rested her chin on the shelf of her arms. A warm breeze blew up from the valley floor and she noticed that the crescent moon was just beginning to rise over the opposite ridge.

* * *

><p>A hand was on her shoulder and she awoke. Wait, she was asleep? Sakura blinked hard and turned to see Gaara on his feet next to her. Shuffling to her feet she began to mumble an apology and realized the moon was now directly above them. Hours, she must have been asleep for hours. "Kazekage-sama, I – I…" Sakura stuttered out embarrassed and still a bit too groggy to come up with a smoother response. She pushed her fingers through her hair and looked up.<p>

His eyes were light as he gazed back at her. "It is fine, Sakura. We all deserve a rest at times."

"Thank you," she smiled sheepishly at him and his eyes seemed to lighten fractionally more. "It's been… it's been a long few days."

Gaara nodded and looked out across the valley. Most of the fires were out, Sakura noted, still chagrined at how long she had slept. How had she been able to fall asleep at all? She was 1) a ninja and 2) not in her own camp surrounded by friends on watch. Falling asleep inadvertently was something she had been trained not to do while still a genin. Falling asleep got you killed quickly.

"It was nice." He said it so softly she nearly didn't catch it. Her head snapped back to him, her internal self-flagellating monologue suddenly on hold. "I haven't been with someone who wasn't asking anything of me in," he paused considering, "a very long time."

She nodded, a bit mystified at the comment. Gaara was still staring down at the valley. An army, Sakura thought, he's responsible for an entire army of people. The success of his army will determine the outcome of a war and an entire way of life is dependent on him and the decisions he makes. Sakura's worries came into stark focus. None of them were alone in this. If Naruto stumbled for a moment, someone else would be there to help him. She could pull strength from all of those around her. And give it to back them when they needed it, even if she didn't realize it or wasn't even conscious in the moment. She grinned to herself and wrapped that thought around her.

"Any time, Kazekage," she let a bit of mirth slide into her voice. She felt giddy all of a sudden.

He turned to look at her and smiled slightly back. "Let's go back, then."

* * *

><p>I thought I'd try to write a story and, dude, it takes waaaay longer than I thought. I guess I'll stop secretly (silently) being annoyed when authors take a while to post updates. :)<p> 


End file.
